SEC Football Recruiting: Is Recruiting Turning Into a Side Show?

College football recruiting is the life blood of any major college's  future success, and in the SEC in particular with the parity in talent these days, it has become an even bigger and growing event each year for each member school..  

For instance, the team I am most familiar with is the LSU Tigers, and they have the annual Bayou Recruiting Bash held in downtown Baton Rouge every signing day.

Fans buy tickets at $ 40.00 per person and some  will take vacation time, sick leave, or whatever just to be there watching the Fax machine come rolling in as the recruits sign their letter of intent to the Tigers.  There are big screen TVs, Beer, and plenty of food to help satisfy and entertain these fans.

There were over 4,000 fans in attendance for this year's Bayou Recruiting Bash and the event all comes down to the final address by Coach Les Miles to stir up the crowd and close the day.

Every school covets the talents of the top rated players and the future stars are being courted and treated like stars before their time and many of them seem to be enjoying the spot light a little too much.

Up until several years ago, the success of most college recruiting was measured by wire service polls and certain experts like Max Emfinger, and other so called recruiting experts.

But in recent years, , Internet services such as  Rivals.com, Scout.com, ESPN, CSNBC, and several others now rank players by assigning a number of stars to each prospect,  and then they place them in their top 150 or 200 prospects.  

Which ever team picks the most five-star and four-star players usually ends up being ranked highest in the final recruiting rankings on signing day.  

All of these recruits tend to make commitments to their college of choice, and most by far do honor their commitments, but there is a growing number of big recruits that hold off for a big signing show or they simply change their minds on signing day.   

However, sadly many of these young teenagers can't seem to resist the spot light and attention being given them, so they wonder away from their committed word and sign with other schools on signing day.

This is certainly nothing new, as this process has been the norm for many years now and you never really have these recruits at your school until the actually sign and fax in the letter of intent.

But this year there has been some growing concerns among all recruiters with the level that many of these future stars are beginning to take things to. 

As good examples of my observation, I have outlined a few of these particular incidents that have occurred within the SEC this year.

1.  Quarterback Jacoby Brissett from a High school in Florida knew where he wanted to go on February 3rd, and he even told his coaches and friends of his decision.  

Without discussing this final decision with his own mother first, he inform her of his decision  by a text message the next day apparently so she would not interfere with his decision.  

He then made his big announcement that he was going to the University of Florida instead of Miami at his high school's senior night for the basketball team as his mother watched. 

2.  Isaiah Crowell  of Georgia was one of the top running back in the country and was courted by virtually every major college for several years, but when he made his final decision public, he made it  hoisting A LIVE BULLDOG up a poll instead of just donning the normal hat to signify his decision. 

More and more of these top prospects are so taken in and enamored with themselves that they are willing to misuse or abuse a poor dog to draw attention to themselves. 

3.  Floyd Raven of Reserve Louisiana had a scholarship offer to Ole Miss and one to Texas A&M, but his mother thought her son was going  to Ole Miss and she forged the letter of intent and faxed it in to Ole Miss. 

However, Floyd had other plans and he sent his papers into Texas A&M and they explained this as just an honest mistake as he thinks his mother was trying to help him.  Mean time Ole Miss got left at the alter as Floyd exposed his mother's forgery and Texas A&M is the winner. 

What in the world is his Mother doing forging papers in the first place, but then nothing happens with her illegal actions. 

4.  Jadeveon Clowney of Rock Hill S. C.   is the nations number one recruit and he had serious offers from South Carolina, Alabama, Clemson, Florida State, and LSU and he strung all of these schools along with hope. 

Although he narrowed his choices down to South Carolina and Alabama for most of the process, he flirted with LSU and even promised a visit, but then cancelled out and did the same with Florida State.

In the end he really knew all along where he was going,  but the intrigue of the recruiting process had him hooked and he tried to draw things out as long as he could. So he finally made his announcement today on his 18th birthday on ESPN TV.  

I guess all of this is part of the recruiting process, but it is extremely costly to all of the big schools that recruited these prospects and it sure would be nice if they would not have to drag things out to keep themselves in the spotlight.

It appears something must done about the excessive attention being given to these young and impressionable players that have become spoiled to the spotlight and crave the attention given them by services like ESPN that feed these incidents just to make money. 

It is the NCAA themselves that continues to make everybody wait until February 2nd and give these guys time to flirt with schools they don't really plan on signing with anyway. 

This arbitrary signing date of February 2nd is only feeding this growing problem and it is possibly creating an atmosphere that opens up for cheating. 

The current process reminds me of speed traps that the police use on low traffic areas to catch unsuspecting citizens. They say they are for the good, but really they are just trying to make money by trickery.

Creating an early signing date in the Fall would both cut costs and  curtail much of the pay for play offers we saw with certain schools this past year. 

Remove the late signing date and replace it with an early signing date, and you will remove the expensive  growing side show in college recruiting.